


mouthfull

by bluu



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Canon Compliant, Character Study, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Relationship Study, Unresolved Tension, gratuitous imagery about war religion and Greece
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:41:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26125909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluu/pseuds/bluu
Summary: He’s in the Black Jackals gym, and Sakusa is cleaning a volleyball silently a few feet away from him. He’s here. The Parthenon is crumbling. The dust has settled and Atsumu looks at the flesh of a city at his feet. He’s here. Sakusa Kiyoomi is here too, and he isalive.For Atsumu, it’s not really about love.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Comments: 37
Kudos: 253





	mouthfull

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: This fic got surprisingly dark, so if you are uncomfortable with metaphors of death, implied suicide, blood, violence, or war, I would be careful reading this. There is no actual violence, death, or even ideation/intent depicted, but it is mentioned as a literary device, so please be cautious.
> 
> General note: I really liked the idea of Sakuatsu but ... the pairing felt really foreign to me without doing some sort of character/relationship study. I know a lot of people may disagree with my Atsumu here (I too am aware that he is, especially post-timeskip, a massive awkward dorkass) but it was really the only headspace that made sense to me. Discretion is advised.
> 
> Summary is also subject to change.

It’s day two of the Spring Interhigh, and Inarizaki has just lost to Karasuno in an embarrassing, drawn-out defeat.

Atsumu stands alone on the court. In the moments after a loss, there’s only silence, even when there’s white noise and the sounds of chattering and cheering and pitying coos around you. The whole world goes quiet for a second and Atsumu is there in the middle of the court, standing on scorched earth ravaged by warfare — the impact of disappointment like a crater on the ground, a meteorite crash. Atsumu is in the middle of it, like a bulls-eye on a target, and he’s watching the consequences, the bodies on the ground, the blood on the floor. 

_AND INARIZAKI, THE TEAM FEATURING THE MIYA TWINS AND THE TOP CONTENDERS FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP, HAVE BOWED OUT IN THE FIRST MATCH…!!_

There’s nothing left to say. Atsumu sees white. His throat is dry, and he opens his mouth to try and speak— 

“...Sorry, ‘Tsumu, we were a little too thirsty then—”

Atsumu hears an orchestra of bombs and gunfire in his head, as if the battle had never ended.

... _THE BIGGEST UPSET OF THE SPRING HIGH TOURNAMENT…_

“You’re right, ‘Samu,” Atsumu murmurs quietly, the static in his head cranking up and up until all he can hear is the crackle and buzz of shame, drowning out the sounds of war. It’s over now, even though the fury in his blood refuses to bow down in loss. There’s no white flag to be raised in surrender. The white flag is gone, never existed, and even if it did there is no one left to wave it.

After all, Atsumu is already dead. 

* * *

Hinata Shouyou hungers and thirsts in a way that Atsumu has never seen. There’s something admirable about this tiny little cannon of adrenaline and fire who shoots up in the air and _stays_ there, suspended as a songbird soars. Hinata Shouyou breathes in volleyball and exhales love _._ He loves the game, he loves the feel of the volleyball slapping against his palm and the smell of rubber on the court and the bruises and burns. That much is obvious. 

The human body can last about two weeks without food, but only three days without water, and Hinata Shouyou is the kind of person who doesn’t just need volleyball to live, he needs volleyball to survive _._ The human body can only last a maximum of seven minutes without oxygen. Hinata Shouyou breathes in volleyball and exhales a love that pulses in time with his heartbeat, each beat in tune with how every fiber of the muscles in his body stretches and contracts. 

For Atsumu, it’s not really about love. Hell, it’s not even really about volleyball. Volleyball was just something that he and Osamu happened upon — perhaps by chance, perhaps by fate — as schoolboys. A ball, a net, and time to pass; volleyball is a simple game, really, but Atsumu learned that he was good at it. At the age of eight, Atsumu learns the feeling of being drunk without a drop of alcohol ever touching his tongue. The emptiness of desire. 

For Atsumu, it’s about the hunger itself — it’s about being the best. Atsumu wants to eat the world whole and then drink its seas. Parched from the salt of the ocean, he’ll keep searching for other planets to swallow, gorging himself until the universe swirls in his stomach like bad wine. The stars pepper his tongue and Atsumu craves for the ichor of God. There’s no stopping him now.

* * *

Miya Atsumu meets Sakusa Kiyoomi at the All-Japan Youth Training camp. He seems utterly unremarkable, despite having the brand of _NATION’S TOP THREE SPIKER_ practically interwoven with his name as a synonym. 

“Your toss,” Sakusa says, in the break after their first scrimmage match. “It’s easy to hit, but you need more power behind it. A set’s acceleration translates into kinetic energy upon a spiker’s hit.”

“What the _fuck_ are you talking about,” Atsumu bites out. Sakusa stands unmoving, unfazed. He doesn’t even blink. Atsumu thinks that if he slapped Sakusa in the face right now, Sakusa’s skin would harden like Greek marble and Atsumu would break his hand on his cheek. He wants to do it. He wants to fucking slap Sakusa so hard his fingers snap in half.

“You’re really going to go to Nationals with that attitude?” Sakusa asks casually, as if asking about the weather.

Atsumu doesn’t slap him. He wants to ask him who the fuck he thinks he is to talk to him like that but Atsumu knows exactly who Sakusa Kiyoomi thinks he is. _NATION’S TOP THREE SPIKER._ It’s right in his name. 

“I’m going to win Nationals with this attitude,” Atsumu snarls. The bombs go off in his head and Atsumu is in the trenches, desperately trying to reload his gun. “I have yet to see why they named you a top ace. Just wait. At the Spring Interhigh I’m going to beat the shit out of that reputation of yours.”

Sakusa Kiyoomi stares. He stares and stares, until Atsumu looks away, blood boiling, acid creeping up his throat. He has already lost.

* * *

The worst part of the Spring Interhigh is that Inarizaki doesn’t even lose to a winner. Karasuno doesn’t make it past the quarter-finals. Hinata Shouyou starves for volleyball to the point of exhaustion. Without the boy-cannon, Karasuno is crushed with the fury of a conquering country. Kamomedai takes advantage of the crippled. It’s a crime scene on the court, yellow-tape and all.

Itachiyama doesn’t make it past the quarter-finals, either. Atsumu supposes that is a small victory. At this point, he’ll take what he can get.

* * *

“I’m quitting after high school.”

“I didn’t know you were such a fucking pussy _,_ Osamu.”

“You know it’s not about volleyball. It was never about volleyball. Not for me, not for you.”

“Fuck off. You have no drive _._ I’m ashamed of you. What happened to be hungry?”

“You’ll starve, Atsumu. I’ll watch you die. I swear by it.”

It’s funny, Atsumu thinks. Atsumu is already dead. All that’s left of him are the eye of the storm and the stillness of a battleground. The quiet of a loss. Atsumu is no longer human. He hasn’t been since he was eight. His hands are bandaged and bruised and they’re wrapped around his own neck and he’s drowning. There is no better feeling than to thirst and to die enveloped by the very waters of his own desire. The emptiness widens, and opens like a lock.

Atsumu is dead. He is becoming a god, right here, right now. Just watch. 

* * *

Atsumu tries out for the MSBY Black Jackals at the age of nineteen. When he makes the team, neither Hinata Shouyou nor Sakusa Kiyoomi are there. 

In their absence, Atsumu wonders what it’s like to rip a songbird’s wings off. He thinks of Brazil and hot sand and an unforgiving sun. He wonders what it’s like to slam a hammer into a marble statue and watch it crumble to dust. When Athens was bombed, did the stone feel anything? When the Pathenon collapsed, did the statues cry out in pain as centuries of history exploded in a single moment? He thinks of his team’s old motto: _WE DON’T NEED THINGS LIKE MEMORIES,_ and wonders if Sakusa Kiyoomi agrees. 

Atsumu accepts his jersey. It’s black, like Inarizaki’s once was. He shrugs it on, and steps out onto the battlefield once more. The air of the court vibrates and shivers, as if in fear, as if whispering the words _here he comes again, and again, and again._

* * *

Sakusa Kiyoomi doesn’t join the pro leagues until he’s twenty-one. Atsumu staffs his try-outs for the Black Jackals, and is furious when he learns that Sakusa is as good as his former title of _NATION’S TOP THREE SPIKER_. Better, even, in the way a reputation is seasoned with time and practice. 

Atsumu flicks a set to Sakusa, with feather-like touch and the accuracy of a bullet, and watches as Sakusa rises from the ground, arm stretched back like a drawn bow, taught. He swings and his wrist snaps like a rubber band, the ball curving in a smooth, almost parabolic arc before slapping the ground with a bang. The sound echoes, deafening, like an explosion. Atsumu glares at the point of impact. It’s a beautiful spike.

“Your toss,” Sakusa says. He’s gotten taller since the two of them were seventeen — a few centimeters. It felt like a kilometer worth of difference, and Atsumu wonders what else has changed. “It’s gotten better. Good job.”

“Fuck you,” Atsumu bites. It doesn't sound nearly as wolfish as Atsumu had wanted it to. “Where the fuck were you, anyway? Took your sweet time to go pro.”

Sakusa stares. “College.”

“ _College?_ The hell were you doing there?”

“Getting an education,” Sakusa deadpans. “I graduated a few months ago.”

Atsumu stares back. “But you’re here now.” 

Sakusa turns his head towards the dozens of balls on the other side of the net, littered on the floor like shrapnel. “I am.”

Atsumu doesn’t say _welcome back._ After all, they were enemies before. But Atsumu looks at Sakusa — really looks — and in the vantablack of Sakusa’s eyes Atsumu recognizes something familiar: hunger. It’s colder than his own, but it’s there all the same, and it lurks like a demon bubbling under Sakusa’s marble skin. Atsumu feels it; he sees it in the way Sakusa rises to the apex of his jump and slams the ball down, every single spike refreshed with a new vigor born out of a lust for excellence. Atsumu’s own hunger, deep inside his belly, responds in kind, curling on itself and unfurling into something Atsumu couldn’t quite put his finger on. 

He turns away, saying nothing in response.

* * *

Sakusa Kiyoomi is, for lack of a better word, a little neurotic. He forces the team to sanitize their hands before practice by going to every person on the team and demanding to squeeze a few drops of Purell into their palms. He Clorox wipes every ball meticulously before and after he uses them. He wears a surgical mask whenever he isn't practicing or eating. He doesn't drink from water fountains — he can only ever drink from his own water bottle, even for their Saturday seven hour practices. (He just brings multiple water bottles for those.)

Sakusa Kiyoomi is also a raging asshole. Not in the way Atsumu is, brash and armed to the teeth, but Sakusa Kiyoomi is so utterly unsympathetic that whenever he speaks he just bulldozes over whoever he decides to roast that day. Oftentimes it's Atsumu who takes the brunt of it. More often it's Bokuto who received the full force of Sakusa's ire. (Bokuto forgets to wash his hands after using the bathroom, sometimes.)

Sakusa Kiyoomi is also one of the best spikers MSBY Black Jackals has to offer, despite his rookie status. 

The two of them are on clean-up duty for today. There really is no room to argue when it comes to Sakusa's cleanliness, so Atsumu just begrudgingly rubs down a ball with a wipe before dumping it into the cart. 

"You never talk about why you decided to come back to volleyball," he says.

Sakusa is silent. Then, after a few beats, he says, "You understand, don't you?"

"Huh?"

"Your brother. He quit."

"Yeah."

Sakusa pauses again. His hands stop moving for a brief second, fingertips drained white from gripping the ball too tightly, as if he is holding the entire world in his palm, steadfast — as if he never wants to let it go. “I didn’t want that to be me,” Sakusa says simply, as if that explains everything. 

It does. It explains everything. Atsumu hates him a little bit for it, but he understands completely. He thinks of Osamu, throwing out his knee pads and peeling off his jersey for the last time, and remembers that Osamu was better than him at volleyball once. Self-sabotage: the sun collapsing in on itself, the undoing of your own body — nothing could ever be worse. That, at least, is something that both Sakusa and Atsumu could understand. 

Atsumu looks down at his own hands. All of sudden they are sticky-stained with blood, and Atsumu tries to remember how many people he’s killed to get here. His brother. Kita Shinsuke. Himself. He looks over at Sakusa’s hands and wonders if he’s killed anyone to get here too, if Sakusa washes his hands to try and clean the blood off. Atsumu knows the blood never goes away. The guilt stays. The memories stay longer.

He blinks. He’s holding a ball and a Clorox wipe in his hands again. He’s in the Black Jackals gym, and Sakusa is cleaning a volleyball silently a few feet away from him. He’s here. The Parthenon is crumbling. The dust has settled and Atsumu looks at the flesh of a city at his feet. He’s here. Sakusa Kiyoomi is here too, and he is _alive_. 

* * *

“You’re not so bad, Omi.”

“That would imply you thought I was bad _._ ”

Atsumu smiles unkindly. “Of course.”

Sakusa takes a sip from his water bottle. Atsumu watches the curve of his neck, the bobbing of his Adam’s apple as he drinks. “Good. I think you’re terrible, also.”

It’s dark outside. The cicadas cry and the night air is like a knife at his throat. Atsumu’s skin thrums and his pulse throbs and Atsumu wonders what it would take for Sakusa Kiyoomi to break in his hands — no hammer, no bombs, just his hands. Gods, the two of them, unmade in their own power, with a hunger only satiated by seeing another be hungrier _._

To devour the divine: what else could be so holy?

**Author's Note:**

> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/oikawatcoru)


End file.
